Black Sheep, White Light

ONE

Shiny, bright as love itself, on a rosy filled-with-glory afternoon. Like she’d just been laid by Don Juan on a bed of petals and filled to the brim with French champagne; as smooth as silk moonlight, strolling through a humid and tender garden, magnolias wafting in the air. I had to know what she knew.

I was soaring high above the Indian Ocean. An individual, map-less, no guide, following an initial clue imprinted within my being. ‘Got to find my destiny before its too late,’ crooned the singer from the band Joy Division in my headphones. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, all I knew was that I had to search.

The clouds resembled a mass of strange white shrubs with sunlight beaming an intense golden glow from within. If science didn’t exist, their surely was an ethereal existence of angels, Goddesses and Gods playing there. For a moment, I thought about asking the pilot of the seven 7-4-7 to fly that way. There had to be something special, honey love or magical dreams. Immediately, the pilot dipped the wing and began to increase the speed in that direction. Today, I was going there… to freedom, to knowing her. And this time, it felt like it was really going to happen.

On the first step off the plane, the humid air of Bali engulfed me. I located my bags, left the casual slaphappy airport and went outside in search of accommodation. Sweat droplets dripped down my body. Hailing down a taxi, a big Balinese man smiled, ‘ jump in, where to?’ He seemed over friendly, but being in a new culture, who was I to judge. We entered Kuta, the main tourist area.

‘This will do,’ I said.

He dropped me smack in the centre of Kuta town. Being late on a Friday, the atmosphere was rich with potent activity. The streets lined with shops, hotels and food stands, were crawling with nightlife.

The town had an electric humid feeling. Loud music blared out of various nightclubs and pubs. Party people and locals drifted by with high spirits and glazed eyes, whilst different accents hollered down the dimly lit streets. Prostitutes pranced with careful eager eyes, as stray dogs searched for food. I watched my steps whilst, motorbikes zoomed left, right and centre down the skinny, dirty lanes and even up over the footpaths.

The poor were too poor. A kid, young as a sapling pulled at my shorts and asked in Pidgin English, ‘rupee?’

My adventure had begun, as I realised I was overseas again in a place where I hadn’t been before. It was a shock to the system to say the least. One minute my life was sweet sailing in an Australian life of contemporary promise, the next I was in a completely different country, amongst wild Bali nightlife. The people, the bars; the action looked fun, but I had come to Indonesia for its magical surf. So I proceeded to look at the nearby hotels. At the first one, it took five Balinese to serve me; I knew I was being dealt a wild card. But I really didn’t need the hassle of walking around the wild streets with my entire luggage; looking like a freshie with a sign over my head saying, ‘rip me off please.’

The room was simple and clean. White painted walls; two bamboo chairs, a bamboo bed, an Indonesian patterned bedspread, with one large standing fan blowing pungent air around the room. Lying down on the clean white sheets I felt comfortable and relaxed, then realised something unusual. My libido was raging out of control. Phenomenon strange, I thought to myself. Only hours before I was saying precious goodbyes to my girlfriend. We had decided a year or longer apart was too long to wait for each other, so we had made the most of our last moments together. She was delectably sweet.

Normally, I wouldn’t have been turned on like this. These feelings would have left me and given me a few days grace. Yet I was affected. What had happened? Malicious hotel owner had put me in a room where the energy and strange vibes make a man want sex. Or maybe the nightlife and the prostitutes offering themselves had made an internal impact. No, it was something else.

See I had been overseas before, but this time was different. This time I had completely broken the shackles of mundane life for something completely new. I was free with a whole world to explore by myself. A brand new journey flashed before my eyes, one where I would find out what she knew. Not my girlfriend, another amazing girl. The one who had inspired me to travel, but I’ll tell you about her later. Somehow the combination of this freedom, intermingled with a knowing that I was going to find the answers to questions that had been plaguing my mind for far too long now, left my soul soaring. Facing my fears to follow my dreams, to do what ‘I’ wanted for a change had me excited, deep into my groin.

The morning broke with a loud rooster cock-doodle-do and the sounds of a bustling little city. Still early, I broke fast for breakfast, with the anticipation of riding Bali’s waves. Four delightful Balinese waiters served a delicious tropical fruit breakfast in the guest hotel dining room. ‘No ice in my juice,’ I said and carefully watched them blend fresh apples, oranges and watermelon together, before hastening down my rift to make way for the ocean.

Arriving to Kuta Beach, the surf was dead flat and beach filled with just about every tourist known to man. English and American accents ranted and raved. Large clusters of Japanese tourists snapped photos as slender European bodies gallivanted along the shoreline. All by myself in an unknown world, I had stepped out of my comfort zone and began to feel a little overwhelmed and anxious about the huge adventure that lay ahead. Looking for quiet spot to reflect, I stumbled onto a grassy embankment adjoining the beach, away from the crowd under the shade of a single coconut tree.

For a few moments images of friends and family passed through my mind. I had left everything behind, including a good career that was supposed to set me up for life. Coming from a family with abundance, I had just about everything one could want from day dot. Fortunately, I realised that money can buy a certain amount of happiness but like The Beatles worked out decades ago, it definitely ‘can’t buy love’. After five years of university, I certainly could have done with a little more of that. My head was filled with facts. My heart felt empty and all the study had left me with a decent backache.

On the outside I was pretty normal; a university student, going in the right direction. But underneath, I really didn’t know whether I believed in that life of success. I knew there had to be something more fulfilling than just getting ahead.

The girl I mentioned before, she had shown me this inkling, inkling for enchantment and the happiness found in doing exactly what one wanted to do with their life. She had found it, and so could I. I had to choose; keep my mouth shut, achieve, succeed and fall in line and become one of societies puppets, or risk it all for something I knew had to be out there.

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